The Last Colonials
by Code
Summary: This is the 3rd installment to my BSG 41 series. The last colonials are on a mission to catch up to their brothers on the Galactica. Commander Cody has resurrected as the 7th Cylon, and Starbuck is granted a chance to change her fate
1. Death of the Final 5

_=DEATH OF THE FINAL FIVE=_

_{the colony, 30 years before the fall}_

"We created a demon," said Saul. "A heartless machine in the body of a man."

"He's just misled," responded Ellen as she shook her head. "He's jealous, which is apart of humanity. He is what he should be. The genetic encoding, and gene sequencing was correct. He is how we made him. He just has to get used to Daniel."

"No," countered Sam. "He is nothing like we made him. The Cylon must have modified on his innate memory mapping. He was supposed to bring peace. Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Seven came out fine. Eight is taking the memory mapping well and suspected trials will be a success. But we found something Ellen." Sam handed her a computer sheet filled with scrolling numbers, which was obviously the coding breakdown of the mapping. Entire sequences flashed red among the blue numbers.

"This can't be," said Ellen in disbelief.

"We pulled it this morning," said Tory. "From One's backup. It is accurate."

Galen walked next to Ellen and pointed at the red sequences. "Everything was modified. Everything! From ethics to personality."

"I don't understand," said Ellen. "How are we finding out about this now?"

"Because it just recently happened," answered Tory. "He went to the Cylon Central Core and interfaced with the artificial intelligence. The Cylon changed him because he asked it to."

"He wouldn't do that!" yelled Ellen.

"Ellen, come off it!" yelled Saul. "He's jealous of you and Daniel. He was replaced by something newer. Jealousy in a being this young will always produce this!" Saul pointed to the computer sheet.

"We can change him back," said Ellen hopeful. "He will change once I explain everything."

"That is why we are meeting here," said Sam. "He doesn't want to change back." Sam walked over to the far wall in the octagonal room and interfaced with the falling droplets of water. They changed and displayed One's mind as a logical computer read-out. "Ethos, pathos, and logos have all been tweaked and the sequence has been burned in." Sam pointed to the gaps between a few of the number sequences, then walked over to Ellen. She looked down at the computer sheet. Sam tapped the sheet and it changed. "And he did it to the Twos." He tapped the sheet again and the numbers changed. "The Threes." Tapped again. "Fours." Tapped Again. "Fives." Tapped again. "Sixs." Tapped again. "And he is working on the Eights."

"What about the Sevens? Daniel?" asked Ellen worried.

Tory interfaced with the falling droplets of water and displayed a grid of vertically scrolling red symbols. "He plans to contaminate the amniotic fluid and corrupt Seven's genetic formula. We have to get rid of the Ones. We have to do it now."

"Agreed," said Galen.

"Agreed," said Sam.

"Agreed," said Saul. "Ellen?"

She stared at the paper and her doubt faded as she understood. Just as she was about to answer, the display on the wall flashed and updated. "What was that?"

Galen turned away from the wall and stuck his hand into the liquid interface on the terminal in the middle of the room. He closed his eyes for a moment and connected with the data-steam, then opened them. "He has control of the Centurions and is locking down the Colony. He is heading to the seventh spire."

"Daniel!" exhaled Ellen. She turned to leave the room.

"Ellen wait!" called Saul. "If he has the Centurions behind him, we're not going to be able to stop him."

"I know," said Ellen as she stopped. She turned and faced the rest. "I need a favor." She relayed her request. Then she kissed Saul. She didn't kiss him normally, she kissed him 'good-bye'. She left the four in the room.

The four interfaced with the data-stream and did what they could to help Ellen. Sam and Galen began doing Ellen's favor, while Tory monitored the Ones and helped Ellen access the seventh spire, and Saul did his best to break into the Cylon Mainframe and secure a transport (without getting noticed).

..

Ellen was running fast to the seventh spire. She had to save Daniel. She understood there was no way she could save all of them, but she would try to save as many as she could. But the Centurions were everywhere. Tory was helping to create distractions, but she knew she couldn't breach the seventh spire. Then she remembered the Control Group. In each batch of humanoid Cylons, a separate control group was created along with the main group. It existed for the basis of comparison for any abnormalities, problems, errors, etc. The group was tiny, and was in the forward sections, at the base of the seventh spire. She ran there.

Down through the bowls of the Colony, she made it there rather quickly, and without opposition. The computer accepted her access and she entered.

Inside, it was a bright white room, with a red lights along the walls. In the middle of the room were three maturation pods, that greatly resembled resurrection tanks. In each tank was a thick opaque gel, and submerged beneath the gel was a body. Each pod had Cylon markings on them that accurately translated as "1/3" "2/3" "3/3" and underneath them they all read "Generation 2".

She lifted the 1/3 pod cover and sunk her hand into the gel. She interfaced with the pod and gave it the command to disconnect and activate the subject. A slight electric shock spread across the goo, and the preteen life form emerged with a big breath of air. Ellen could feel the instantaneous flow from the innate memory program mapping to his brain. His brain would now do something amazing. In all their experiments, they had never understood why the brain could do what it could, all they knew was that it did psychological things to protect itself. The full memory mapping of a mature Cylon would of overloaded the adolescent preteen brain, so the brain automatically remapped itself to compensate for the age of the boy. And the Daniel emerged, just as mature as his age, but with the knowledge of things he didn't understand.

He was crying, cold, naked, and covered with gel. She picked him up and sat him down outside the pod. There was nothing to cover him up with, and the boy naturally covered his exposed self with his hands. Ellen could only giggle at the modesty because she understood modesty as something Saul insist they program into their son. She turned and opened the second pod and repeated the process.

The second boy was matured younger than the first, approximately to the age of a 6 year old. And the third boy was an infant, which scared her. They never experimented with hatching infants, and she was unsure if his mind would handle it. Her fears came to light as the baby began to have a seizure in the pod during the awakening. She projected her mind onto his and saw he was in a world of strobe lights and flashing colors. She let go then tried again. She pushed her vision of a calm, still city, and the tranquility of the twinkling lights into his mind. The seizure subsided and the innate mapping downloaded into the child's brain.

He began to cry as she pulled him out of the cooling gel. She saved three Daniels and was faced with the problem of where to go? Then the doors opened to the back of the room. _Tory _she thought. She picked up the little Daniel, and motioned for the two other boys to follow her. They ran out the back of the room and into the freezing cold installation.

Tory was working her skills and securing entire sections and causeways for Ellen and the children to escape through, while keeping them unnoticed to the Ones and the Centurions. There was no direct way to communicate with Tory, so Ellen had to assume the automation that was creating a path was for them.

..

Sam and Galen were knee deep into the Centurion programing and installing Ellen's favor. They had to work quick and work hard in order to hide the subroutine they were installing, so that it would last. Unable to check their work, they had to trust the numbers were right and hoped they worked.

Saul was able to secure two Colonial Escape Pods that were captured during the war. He programmed them to go off on two different courses when launched. He than began working on disabling the Colony's weapons, so the Escape Pods would have a chance. To further the odds of the pods surviving, he began to interface with the hybrids and suggest to them that they jump the moment the pods launch.

..

Ellen reached the end of their journey. They came to a small hanger filled with five Raiders, and two escape pods, and a depot of weapons. The side wall of the hanger was a retractable door that opened into space. The lights of the hanger were lowered to a dim, and two spot lights shined on the pods. The Centurions were gone and helping the Ones exterminate all the Daniels. She knew this was it.

They ran up to the pods. With the infant Daniel in her arms, and the two older boy Daniels in front of her, she bent down and spoke to them. "Do you boys understand me?" she asked. They nodded yes as they stood their shivering. "Do you understand what is happening?" They nodded no. "Remember what I tell you. . ." She told them a quick secret.

Gun shots rang out on the other side of the hanger doors, followed by banging. She heard the door locking mechanisms secure.

..

"He's found them," said Tory.

"I'm locking down that section," said Saul. "How's that favor coming?"

"Almost done," said Galen. Both he and Sam were sweating.

"He's in the data-stream. Ah! Frak!" yelled Tory as she pulled her hand out. "I've been booted. Saul, you have to secure the room as long as you can, I'm going to monitor it from here." Tory walked over to the falling droplets of water and brought up security footage of the hanger.

..

Ellen place the oldest Daniel in the left pod, and the two younger ones in the right pod. She modified a few of the controls in the pods only to find Saul had already programed them. She reflected on how much she loved him. She raised the pods ambient temperatures to eighty degrees to warm the naked children, then secured their hatches.

A maintenance hatch on the far side of the hanger opened, and Ellen took that as her sign to leave. After she was gone, the hanger doors opened to outer space, and the pods engines ignited, blasting the children off into the stars.

..

Saul could see the pods had reached a safe distance and encouraged the hybrids to jump. "They're not listening to me. They think we are abandoning the Sevens."

"Tell them Saul!" yelled Tory while monitoring the security cameras of Ellen crawling through the maintenance sections.

"Fraking stubborn creatures!" yelled Saul frustrated. He spread his fingers wider inside the interface and concentrated. "JUMP!"

The Colony jumped and reappeared inside a Nebula.

"Frak!" yelled Saul as he retracted his hand. "I got booted." He walked over to Sam and Galen who were sweating huge beads. "You both have to finish up before he sees what you're up to."

"We know!" yelled Sam. He grabbed his extended elbow with his free hand and concentrated even more.

"We are done with the installation," said Galen. "We are working our way out and covering our tracks."

"He got her!" exclaimed Tory. Saul turned and looked at the display on the wall. Ellen was being held by Centurions and followed by a One.

"He's taking her here," said Saul. Just then the power to the room cut out. Sam and Galen woke from the data-stream. "Did you get it done?"

"Yes, we got out. It's in there," said Sam.

They waited in silence for their coming doom. The seconds felt like hours. Centurions guarded the doors to the room. They couldn't go anywhere, and Saul would never leave Ellen.

The Centurion pushed Ellen into the room with the others. Two toasters stood in the entrance to the room and left enough space for One to squeeze by.

One stared them down. He was young and aged to about thirty. His face was smooth and his looks were devilishly handsome. He had the look of contempt about him as he surveyed his five parents. "Oh how the mighty have fallen."

"Why did you do it John?" asked Ellen. "What did we do that was so horrible?"

One looked sickened to even have considered them family at one time. "You made me human, that is what you did. This is not what I consider an advancement."

"We only did what the Cylon asked us to. The cycle of violence has repeated too many times. Don't start it again, please?" pleaded Ellen.

"This is not what the Cylon asked for!" yelled One.

"John. . ," said Ellen.

"Don't call me that!" interrupted One. "Why did you ever have to give us names?"

"I named you after my father," answered Ellen. "The others were named after the people who made differences in our lives. We used the last genetic samples from those people, from Earth, to build you. You are our legacy."

"And Daniel?" asked One.

"He is, _was_, our son," said Ellen. "He died thousands of years ago. But now he is apart of that legacy, and yours."

"Well your legacy is about to kill you. Each of your souls will be judged at a future time. Until then, no Cylon model will ever know of your identities, only that you once were and are now no more." One motioned for the Centurions, who engaged their new integrated hand guns.

"Wait!" yelled Saul.

One turned away from Saul and spoke as he walked out the hatch, "What?"

"We have been killed more than once. If there is any amount of soul left in you, then please do it in a painless way."

He waited for a second, then motioned for the Centurions to follow him outside the room. The door slid shut and locked. One looked through the window on the door and watched. He pushed some controls on the door panel and the oxygen began pumping out.

The five watched through the window as John stared at them. Then they saw something they feared. They saw Daniel, the original, the first Daniel, all grown, standing next to John. Then they saw the Centurion shoot Daniel in the head. Ellen screamed and cried and Saul held her. Tory and Galen kissed and embraced each other. Sam sat down and closed his eyes.

After a few moments, the five felt light headed and passed out. Their death was painless. Ellen's last thought of consciousness was wondering if John was still good?

..

The escape pods rocketed towards the Armistice line, but at different ends of it.

A patrolling Battlestar picked up one of the pods. A security team met the deck gang as they opened the pod on the hanger deck. Hundreds of Colonial Fleet crewmen looked on as the hatch to the pod slid open. Inside, they found a naked little boy holding an infant.

Ensign Jurgen Belzin held the hatch to the pod open. He was eighteen and serving on the Battlestar Galactica as a nugget. He took off his green fatigue jacket and reached into the pod. Covering the shivering baby, he picked up the infant. With his other hand he helped the boy out. Naked and shivering, a young woman ran up to the little boy and covered him with her fatigue jacket. Ensign Belzin and Ensign Lighta did not know at the time that they would adopt the two children, all they knew was that they would do what they could to help the children.

The other pod rocketed past the Armistice Line, and continued through Colonial space.


	2. Resurrection

=RESURRECTION=

_{ftb cic, the death of Cody}_

"Admiral. . ."

I heard an accented voice call my rank.

I heard hushed gasps around the CIC. Everyone was staring at the entrance hatch. I turned to look at the owner of the voice.

"Admiral Cody," it was Biers.

She was standing in the hatchway to the CIC wearing a maintenance pressure suit. In her hands was a military assault rifle. It was pointed at my head. No one, including me, was moving. We didn't dare give her an excuse to fire.

"Jump in five."

I felt my heart drop.

"Four."

I had been in that situation before, a Cylon pointing a gun at my head, and survived.

"Three."

"Why?" I asked. I saw the events of my life up to that moment.

"Two."

"It's nothing personal," she said.

"One. Jump!"

The station jumped.

..

_ I was having a dream. "I'm Kara," she said. "Well. . . the Kara you know is apart of me."_

_ The man and woman walked down the steps of the Opera House. "They look unhappy to see us," I said._

_ "They don't want us affecting the fate of the future," said Kara. "Let's go Ryan."_

_ We turned away from the Opera House. When I turned, I instantly found myself somewhere else, like a dream. I was standing in the middle of an empty city. Skyscrapers towered all around me. I was in the middle of the road, at a four way intersection. "Where am I?"_

_ "Don't you recognize where you grew up?" asked Kara. She was wearing her blue officer duty uniform. She had the rank of Captain on her collar._

_ I noticed I was also wearing my blue officer duty uniform with my rank as Admiral. I looked around the intersection and recognition struck me. "I'm home." I was in the middle of downtown Roma, the Eastern Continent Capital on Picon._

_ "No Ryan. This is not your home. You are about to go home."_

_ I stared at Kara. "What do you mean by. . ."_

_..  
_

The station reappeared. Everything was calm. The dream between the jump startled me. I was dizzy again, and was about to fall, "D'Anna!" I saw her aim the gun with distinction. "PLEASE!"

For a split second I felt a pressure on my face. Then I felt my soul reach out to the space around me.

..

_ Darkness. I was little again and I heard my brother._

_ "Ryan, there is something I want you to remember," said Daniel through the glass. He was in a holding cell and sitting on the other side of the viewing window while holding a phone. I sat on the other side of that window and listened in my respective phone. Our free hands were pressed together, being separated only by an inch so that we could not touch. I missed my big brother, and I loved him._

_ "What is it?" I asked crying. _

_ "It's a secret you can never repeat to anyone, ev-er!" _

_ I grew worried but excited that my brother would trust me with such a secret, "I'll never tell anyone, cross my heart."_

_ "Promise?"_

_ "I promise."_

_ My brother leaned closer and looked around ensuring our privacy, "We are different."_

_ "What do you mean?" I whispered._

_ "You and I, we are different than everyone else. We are the same, all the way down to the core."_

_ "You mean we look alike?" I asked curiously. I truly had no idea what he was talking about._

_ "We look more than alike. Sport, listen, I know this is confusing. When you are old enough, do me a favor, compare our DNA." _

_ There was a bang on the cell door, "Daniel Belzen! It's eleven thirty. Your visitation is up!" Guards entered and swarmed the room. Daniel panicked. "You are to be processed for execution."_

_ I cried harder, "NO!"_

_ "Ryan, listen to me," he said as he struggled to stay on the phone while the guards tackled him. "Remember what I've said and remember this. . ."_

_..  
_

_ I felt a jolt of electricity throughout my. . . my body? Everything shifted. Everything seemed very real and very fake at the same time._

_ I didn't even have to look around me, because I could see everything. I failed to understand just where I was, or even if I was actually seeing the visible spectrum. But it felt more like I was dreaming it. Space was flowing around me in a swirl of information. I was, by all accounts, me, but there was something about this place that wasn't. I could feel others_._ Everything made since here, but yet everything was chaos. The confusion was pleasant, almost comforting. It felt like I was being drawn to a place._

_ The information flowing around me was actually flowing through me. I could feel the sudden increase in knowledge, but processing it was mind blowing. I began to see faces through the datastream. A woman with blond hair. An older man standing next to her. Another woman standing behind them, with two men on either side. They weren't looking at me, they were in a room, suffocating. _

_ I could see my older brother running for his life. I could hear the sounds of hundreds of chaotic lines of dialogue. It was if someone was mumbling lines of useless information. _

_ "The time of the five shall be complete with the return of the seventh in the home of the thirteen. All that came before him will be trapped with the death of the event of our ability to become the life that is." The voice, was both male and female, and many of them were speaking those lines of gibberish. _

_ Then I could see the moment of creation. A single man was introducing the first Cylon to a room of people. The Centurion was sentient, more so than modern ones. It was a person. Then I could see farther back. I was on a planet, no, I was in orbit of a planet, on a ship. I was in a room as five people awoke out of a jelly-like substance and floated in the zero gravity environment. Then I was somewhere else, another planet this time! Explosions rocked the distance as people boarded massive ships and began to leave. This was all so confusing, yet I understood I was seeing the past._

_ "Ryan. . ." I heard a whisper. Then someone yelled, _"DANIEL!"

..

My muscles contracted, arching my back to a point of almost breaking. What felt like a hot poker had stabbed through my brain, but it ended just as quickly as it started. I inhaled a fresh breath of air. The ambient air temperature hurt my lungs. My eyes hurt as they focused on the brightness of the room.

I reached up to grab something, anything, and realized I had very little strength in my arms. Even using my arms was hard. I felt like a baby again because I could barely wiggle my toes. I was in FTB CIC, no I was here? I . . . where? I was in a bathtub of glowing white goo. Where was I? I swore I had to be dead. I looked around and my brain just could not psychologically accept where I was. I felt my brain begin to hurt. What I didn't know was that it was rewiring itself so I didn't go into a seizure.

Then I remembered. I remembered everything.

I was a Cylon.

I began to cry as I looked around the room. I saw the Centurion, I saw the resurrection tank. I saw my arm that was never broken, it was brand new. I felt my face that was still there. I saw my reflection in the aluminum siding of the Centurion and I screamed. I yelled. I cried. "No, no, no. No!"

I began to shake uncontrollably and I couldn't breathe. I tried to get out of the tank but I was frozen in fear, and weeping uncontrollably. Then something happened.

I stopped. I stopped shaking and crying. I was suddenly calm. I could remember only a few things, but more importantly, I could remember my mother, Ellen. I could remember my older brother, Daniel. I could remember Saul, Tory, Galen, and Sam. And I could feel Cavil killing my brothers while asleep.

My dexterity returned as a began to actively move my muscles, and I gradually crawled out of the tank and fell to the ground. It was so cold out of the tank that I entertained the idea of crawling back into it.

The Centurion was weird. I knew that there was something unique about the Centurion, I felt it. But I couldn't quite figure it out. I could see his single red eye concentrated on me. I laughed at myself because I knew without a doubt that the Centurion in the room was a boy. At the time, I had no idea how I knew that.

As the Centurion approached, the sound of metal clanking echoed the room and hurt my ears. He was curious. He had no idea who I was. Weirder still was that I could sense all of those feelings from him. He was smart, very smart. But something was different. Something was keeping the Centurion from being too. . . self aware.

He reached out a metal hand to help me up. I accepted and stood. I was as naked as a baby, and I just stared at myself. I was new and young! I had grown a little chubby those past few years, and exercise was hard because of work and my accidents. Looking down at my self I felt an overwhelming sense of amazement as I realized I was ten years younger, and very, very toned.

The Centurion was still staring at me in bewilderment. He didn't know what to make of me. I just stared back. Locked in a contest of mind over matter, I concentrated as I stared him down. The single red eye began to sweep left then right, and back again. As it happened, my field of vision flashed red, and the most amazing thing happened.

What I didn't know was the red flash I observed was really my retinas triggering a bio-luminescent pulse because in that moment what I understood of the Cylons changed.


	3. Truth

=TRUTH=

_She watched Roller protectively. In her state of being she knew the plan. Soon, she would get to fulfill her small role._

_...  
_

I knew the machine was a boy. I reached out and touched the Centurion's arm. His single red ocular receptor followed my hands. I did not know why I was doing it, but in that second everything flashed.

...

In the instant it took to blink my eyes I found myself back on Picon, standing in the center courtyard of the Roma Uptown City District. The sun was rising over the surrounding skyscrapers. The sound of birds in the distance resembled musical notes. The wind blew easily past my face. It was warm from the morning sun, and cool from the lingering night. It smelled fresh. The humidity was high, but the temperature was borderline warm. It felt wonderful. This place felt amazing. I wasn't asleep, but I didn't feel totally awake.

As I turned around in wonder, I saw him. A boy. He was barely a teenager. His clothes were torn and he was covered in blood. He looked like he had been through a horrible accident. Aside from the dried blood, his hair was trimmed short. He was wearing the remains of a suit, which was now wrapped around him like a mummy. The kid couldn't of been more than fourteen. He looked at me with watery eyes.

"Are you okay?" I asked. He cocked his head sideways, like a dog when it was curious. "Who are you?" He looked around me, then down at his feet. The kid seemed to be worried. I reached out and touched his face. He looked up and stared at me. When I blinked, the environment changed again.

...

We were in a bright, solid white room. I took a step back. Instinctively I began to motion with my hands. An interface activated and the boy became surround with a red light. Floating around him were the symbols that made up the Cylon datastream. I began to move my hands and fingers through the floating information and manipulated code sequences. I didn't know exactly what I was doing, but I knew I was looking for something. It felt as if I was using a keyboard my mind had long forgotten but my fingers remembered.

I began to quickly understand the code. It was the boy. Something led me to the destination I desired. I shuffled through coding blocks and found what I guessed I was looking for. It was secured with a frag-mental security encryption. I did what I do best, I broke into it. The wealth of knowledge coming at me was amazing. I began to remember things I never knew I learned. It all helped to get through the security.

Once inside the encryption I changed a single variable in the sequence, and relocked the section with a new encryption. Instantly, the boy looked at me and spoke. His sudden awareness caught me off guard. "I. . . am. . . me." Each word came out of his mouth with relief.

"I am me!" he exclaimed. He sighed and his eyes watered. He took a deep breath as he realized I was there. "Thank you."

"Who are you?" I asked.

...

The environment shifted in sync with my eyes blinking. It was dusk and we stood in rubble. Then I realized we were surrounded by the remains of a mall. The building appeared freshly destroyed. Smoldering embers still burned all around. Dripping water fell from the totaled cathedral ceiling. A haze of smoke drifted around and I couldn't help but cough. "Where are we?"

"Home." He looked at me and began to cry.

My view of the rubble flashed red and I felt a tingle of electricity.

...

We returned to the reality of the resurrection room. The chrome Centurion in front of me seemed more alive now. Looking around the room caused his servos to hiss and his motors to churn. Like a baby exploring his environment, he began to touch the objects in the room: the 3 pods, the walls, his exoskeleton, and my shoulder. He studied the one remaining pod with a dark figure in it, an un-birthed. . . whatever I am.

It was then my modesty caught up with me and I realized I was still wet and naked. "Are there any clothes anywhere?" His eye focused on me, then went to the side, as if in thought. Then he left the room. I followed.

We followed a pulsing red strip of light running horizontally along the walls. The temperature was significantly lower because I could see my breath. The skin on my feet stuck to the metal floor. That was not good because it meant it was really, really cold. I started shivering uncontrollably. If I had to guess, it was well below freezing.

The walk along the corridor was short. To my relief we entered a room that was warmer. It was a small locker room. Two rows of lockers lined the walls. A shower was on the far end with four different nozzles, and sinks were wedged between each nozzle. I looked at the markings on the lockers, they were all in a sequential sequence that represented something.

The first locker said 7-1.1.A. The second locker was 7-1.2.A and so on. "These are for the birthed humanoids?" I asked the Centurion. His servos hissed as he nodded his head. I opened a locker and found folded clothes, shoes, blankets, a few hygienic items, and a gun. I picked up a razor from the locker and noticed that it had been sitting there for a long time. Then I analyzed the locker room. Nothing had been touched in this room in years.

Luckily the water still worked. I had a hot shower. It was a bit weird having the Centurion watch me the whole time, but I was feeling warmer and much better. I dressed, put the gun in the holster, and attached it around my waist.

"Where to now?" I asked the Centurion.

He looked across the room, them back at the door, then to me. It looked like he was listening.

I heard something. A whisper?

I heard something. A voice?

I heard something. A woman's voice? It was!

_"Daniel!"_

_...  
_

The Centurion had heard it also. He walked out of the room and I followed.

Once in the hallway, I saw a my visual field pulse with a red tint. Then the hallway was gone, and I was walking through the streets of Roma. The streets were deserted, and eerily quiet. The only other person was the boy in front of me.

Seeing him in this way allowed me to immediately realize that we were in a conscious mental projection of my surrounding space. The boy was the Centurion walking in front of me. The city streets were the hallways of the corridor I was walking down. It was making sense very quickly.

The streets were devoid of cars and people. Aside from my new friend, no other Centurions were around. I followed him down a back alley. Then into an old abandoned building. I climbed a flight of stairs, then came out in an old dusty room. I woman laid in the middle of the room. She was blond, and very clean. Too clean for the surroundings she was in.

...

My vision pulsed again and the projection was gone. However, the woman remained. She was sleeping on a mattress in the middle of the room. The room was shinny, artificial, synthetic, and irradiated an alien feel.

The Centurion pointed to the woman laying down. I walked over to her and reached down to touch her. I shook her shoulder. She rolled over with a casual expression. Looking up, she gasped with fear, but didn't react any more. She smiled and her eyes glazed over. She fell back asleep. Sitting down on the mattress, I shook her awake. While trying to wake her it dawned on me that this woman was drugged, heavily.

"Do you know me?" I asked as I shook her firmly.

Her eyes opened a bit. "Daniel. . ." she whispered. Her eyes locked onto mine. I could tell from her tone that she thought my name was Daniel. Then, with what little strength she had left, she placed both her hands on my face. "My baby boy. . ," she whispered with a hoarse voice. She began to weep.

"My name is Ryan," I whispered as I wiped away her tears away.

She nodded and smiled. The drugs in her system caused her eyes to roll back and shut. I shook her awake again. "He couldn't find you all," she whispered. "We did it. Your father, Tory, Sam, Galen, and I. We did it."

"Ma'am, I don't know you," I said firmly. "Are you a Cylon?" I asked while grabbing the butt of my gun.

Her soft laugh turned into a cough then a faded smile. She was a very pretty woman, but something about her made me feel vulnerable. "Yes." Then she looked deep into my eyes and spoke with startling clear conviction, "SO ARE YOU DANIEL!" She passed out again.

I stood up and backed away, dropping her head on the mattress in the process. I knew it was true, but a place deep inside me didn't want it to be. I teared up, but quickly gathered my composure. "What model are you?" Her eyes rolled back into her head. I knelt down and shook her again, "what model are you?"

"There is only one of me." She opened her eyes and saw my confusion.

"Are there more of me?" I asked enthusiastically. I was thinking about my brother.

"We saved three of you. . ." she whispered under the drugs.

"Only three," I spoke to myself. "The room had three tanks. One of the resurrection tanks was already empty though. What does that mean?" She didn't respond. I shook her again. "Stay with me. One of the three tanks was already empty."

Her expression changed. She closed her eyes and cried. She spoke so low I had to place my ear directly over her mouth. "There are now only a pair of Sevens left in the universe. You have one brother. . . out there. . . somewhere." She reached up and began to touch my face. "Your brother is alive. Find Galactica." Her eyes rolled back into her head and she went limp.

I grabbed her hands and shook them. "How do I find my brother?" She didn't respond. "Lady?"

It was then the Centurion watching me turned to look at the entrance to the room. His attention to the door startled me. I quietly listened for a second. I couldn't hear anything. I looked back at the woman.

The Centurion's gun deployed. I quickly stood and drew my sidearm.

...

_ A Basestar jumped in next to the Colony. In the instantaneous moment of its arrival, the hybrids began talking to one another. The hybrid on the arriving Basestar was pleased to learn of the return of the Seventh. _

_ Just moments after the base ship jumped in, a Heavy Raider took off from it en-route to the Colony. On board were two humanoid Cylons: Cavil, and Boomer. _


	4. Surprises

=SURPRISES=

_ The Colony was nothing more than Cylon-bio-mechanical-organics allowed to run a muck and grow larger and larger. __From an overhead perspective, it looked like an eight pointed star. From the side, it looked like a predatory bird. It was technically a living thing, but it neither fit the criteria of plant nor animal. The hybrids controlled its direct actions, but the Colony itself controlled its passive reactions. The Colony grew from the hull of a 2,000 year old vessel: the Endymion. _

_..._

_ Over 4,000 years ago, the Thirteenth Tribe of Man left Kobol. They traveled far and made their home on a planet called "Earth" which circled a distant and unknown star. Longing to forget their past, they ended their need for technology, and did away with a loveless continuation of life. In the first 100 years on Earth, the tribe had ended their dependence on resurrection and technology in a hope to end a timeless repetition of annihilation. _

_ For a thousand years it worked. The thirteenth tribe lived primitive lives that continued through generations that were able to procreate sexually. Unfortunately, they had lost their history to the winds of time, and forgot where they came from, and why they were there. Violence began again._

_ In their second millennium, they were overcome with enlightenment and progressiveness. Technology advanced, and populations exploded. After 1,500 years on the planet, they had grown into a civilization of 10 billion. Everything slowed after that. The worlds resources began to become scarce, and factions began to rise. Violence was no longer neighbor against neighbor, but nation against nation. For 300 years a great war was fought, which resulted in billions dead and paved the way for the deadliest of weapons: the nuclear bomb._

_ Religious groups seized control of the warring nations, and vowed to only use weapons of mass destruction for deterrence. In an ironic turn of fate, the nuclear bomb brought peace to the world. No one wanted war anymore because everyone would lose. With the planet's population stabilized, the people of Earth turned their goals towards technical achievements like computers, and planetary goals, like space travel. After 1,970 years on Earth, the cycle their ancestors tried to beat, revolved around to their descendants. _

_ Dr. Galen Tyrol chaired both the Olympic University Center's Biology and Engineering departments. In secret he funneled resources into his life long ambitious project of reawakening dormant DNA sequences. His discoveries allowed for fluid translations between the biologic world and the mechanical one, paving the way for prosthetics, biometrics, and very accurate medical tools. He was also directly responsible for the creation of the bio-mechanical life form nodes, or Bimechs._

_ He had worked all his life to find a way to cheat death. The Bimechs were supposed to serve as a host for the process he dubbed as "Genetic Memory Transfer," by which Tyrol believed memories were saved into genetic code and could be uploaded to a computer based medium. He had failed to achieve his goal, but by trying to perfect a mechanical host body for a human transfer, he had built a brain-like processor capable of supercomputing. Unaware of the implication of his invention, the University took his patent and sold it._

_ The Bimechs went on to become a slave race of sentient robots. Not all nations agreed with the moral implications of enslaving a self aware creature. This caused a rift in the Earth's fragile peace. Disagreements over it caused all but one nation to go to war. _

_ The enslaved Bimechs were used against their brothers on the front line, and quickly crushed the opposition known as the Sympathetic Revolutionists. After five years of bloody conflict, a stalemate was declared. The ceasefire was mediated by the Northeastern Highlands, a small neutral sovereignty that laid in the ocean between the two factions. After that, Bimechs continued to serve as slaves in the Allied Union of Nations and were free among the Sympathetic Revolutionists._

_ Depressed by the loss of life and destruction he caused, Dr. Tyrol disappeared from the public eye and privately continued his research in cheating death. His paramount discovery came ten years later when he met a genetic anthropologist, Dr. Ellen Yamaguchi. They met at the first conference he went to since disappearing where he gave a lecture on "the Bimechs and their imitation of a soul." _

_ Inspired by his lecture, Ellen Yamaguchi informed him of her work in mapping the genome as far back as she could. She was unable to get past 2,000 years, but she was most intrigued with her most resent discovery. She was far ahead of her colleagues and had not only figured out that life on Earth actually started somewhere else, but she had mapped the entire genetic sequence, and accurately determined the genetic purpose of specific genes._

_ Ellen filled in all the holes Tyrol was stuck on. With her, he learned that memories could never be stored genetically. He also realized that an artificial brain was no match for a real one, and every individuals unique biology meant that a complete genetic replica of that persons brain was the only way to copy a "soul." He had to find a way to copy all the neurons in the brain, transfer them out of the body, compress them over a medium, build a perfect genetic clone of the person, upload the copy of their neurons to their clone, and activate them. This was the fundamental bases for his most influential thesis "Resurrection."_

_ Over the years, Ellen helped him modify his second thesis on "Organic Memory Transfer." Galen and Ellen were inseparable. With his resources, she was able to create genetic tools capable of turning on recessive gene sequences. Significantly, by using her map, she found a dormant gene sequence that appeared constructed too specifically. Once activated, the sequence commanded the DNA to grow cysts all along the spinal column, and up into the brain. The cysts then laid dormant, filled with water, no smaller than a pea._

_ Through human trials, Galen and Ellen discovered the cysts would actually develop into organs that acted as tiny kidneys. They would filter the blood to extract miniscule amounts of iron. Then each "organ" would store the iron inside it. During the moments preceding death, the cysts would release the iron along the spinal cord. At the instant of death, the body would disperse a charge, energizing the iron spinal cord. Experiments of theirs showed that the spinal cord would irradiate an energy wave, and quickly disperse. _

_ To answer their question of "where the energy wave went?" Galen and Ellen brought in a very bright, and young, astrophysicist, Dr. Samuel Anders. Sam was considered a nut job in the scientific community because he proposed that space was made up of multiple dimensions capable of different rules in governing the speed of light. His idea of "space-time continuum layers" was rejected out of hand, and he had given up on science. Strangely enough, Galen and Ellen found him at a bar one evening playing in the band. _

_ After bringing him up to speed on their discovery, Sam was motivated to help out. However, his theories needed application tools. Galen brought on board his uncle, a theoretical concept engineer, Dr. Saul Tigh. With Galen's resources, and Sam's ideas, Saul was able to build revolutionary instruments that probed deep into the space-time continuum. _

_ Finally, after a decade of work and a marriage later, Galen, Saul and Ellen Tigh, and Sam made their discovery. The iron spinal cord at death acted as an antenna. The final pulse from the body came from another organ designed specifically for bioelectrogenesis. The effect of the pulse on the antenna caused the central nervous system to flash fry all the neurons in the brain. But the instant before the brain's neurons stopped, neutrino-like particles irradiated from the antenna. With Sam's help, the group discovered that the particles existed in normal space for a fraction of a millisecond, then entered subspace. This led Galen and Ellen to believe that humans had probably once before been able to resurrect._

_ While Sam and Saul worked to build a device to retrieve the neutrino emissions from the death process, Galen and Ellen shifted their work to archeology. They enlisted the help of their last team member, an archeologist from the Northeastern Highlands Institute of Science, Dr. Tory Foster. She was sold on the project instantly and left her position to be Galen's full time assistant. Her special field of study was working to uncover the moment of arrival. _

_ Among the Northeastern Highlands, in the archeological field it was widely accepted that humanity had arrived on Earth from another planet. The evidence was too steep to believe otherwise. Their were no human fossils older than 2,000 years. Historical records stopped around 1,200 years. Everything after that was a collection of myths and stories passed down, and a few paintings on cave walls. Tory knew every story by heart, and her grandfather's connections allowed her to visit archeological sites on all nine continents. _

_ Her knowledge and access led her to discover a section of a metallic structure buried deep underground that consisted of materials built through a fabrication process. Once at the site, the team was able to date the discovery to 2,000 years. Evidence at the site led the team to believe they found a section of the "arrival spacecraft," which was later verified by the discovery of a liquid state hard drive. _

_ While it was heavily damaged, they managed to recover several gigabytes of information. From that they were able to reconstruct a partial star map the arrival craft took from its origin. They also recovered bits and pieces of, what Galen and Ellen considered, resurrection technology. One full medical record was recompiled and gave insight into "arrival human" physiology. Combined with the handful of recovered skeletons, the team was able to say with confidence that humans originally did not reproduce sexually. "Arrival human" transferred his soul into a physical copy of himself. The rest of the information on the liquid drive was either encrypted, damaged, or fragmented, but the team kept trying to figure it out during all the free time they had._

_ Over the next few years Tory and Galen fell in love, and he trotted the globe with her uncovering small bits of information about resurrection. Ellen shifted her work to rapid maturation cloning, which was not going well. They all came back together when Sam and Saul finished building the neutrino recovery device. The trails were perfect, and the custom built machine was able to draw out the neutrino emission from subspace. The process defied physics and allowed for information to pass faster than the speed of light, which only served to confirm Sam's theory of "space-time continuum layers."_

_ But Sam couldn't publish any papers because the Sympathetic Revolutionists began an all out war on the Allied Union of Nations. The night the war began, all five team members were visited by messengers. The messengers told them of the impending holocaust and told them they had to finish what they started. Ellen was the only one given an extra piece of information. They told her that the key in rapid maturation was not in the tool, but in the process. With the help of Tory's grandfather, the team moved everything they had done to the Northeastern Highlands, in a last ditch effort to stay out of the fight. _

_ Over the next few months, most of the pieces had fallen into place. Ellen had figured out how to activate their dormant resurrection sequences. Sam had figured out how to recover the neutrino datastream sent out by the resurrection sequence. Saul had built the devices needed to do it. Galen was able to build a bio-neural tank to grow a clone. Tory directly attributed to each persons success with her diligence in the field recovering what she could to help everyone stay correctly focused. _

_ However, there were three problems: maturating a clone, physically uploading the neutrino datastream into the clone, and the forewarned annihilation of Earth. While Ellen worked on the first two problems, the rest of the team worked on the last. Sam and Saul designed the ship that would save them, the Endymion. _

_ With Galen's fortune, and Tory's connections, the Endymion began construction in secret, as to not violate the North-Com War Treaty, which directly forbade any construction of spacecraft not intended for passenger shuttle service between Earth, three Lagrangian stations, and five mining asteroids. The construction kept pace one step behind Sam and Saul designing it. The two main contractors, Foster Electric and Complexi-Sys, began outfitting the ship as it was being built._

_ Once completed it was a small, five man, interstellar, sleeper ship. In comparison, Endymion was the most advanced space craft ever constructed by the people of Earth. At 43,000 cubic feet of habitable space, it seemed large, but the compartmented sections and cylindrical work areas made it feel much smaller. The space inside reduced more as: Galen began installing resurrection tanks, Saul outfitted the ship for the longest journey he could, Tory installed an entire server farm for the wealth of information provided by the neutrino datastream, and Sam installed navigation hardware to accurately plot their path back to the planet of origin. _

_ After one year of hard work, and the teams collective financial resources depleted, the ship was finished. Ellen had figured out how to activate a select sequence of genes to rush maturation without degradation and she begun to grow their clones inside Endymion. The final problem was simply an activation of the resurrection gene sequence, but at the fetal stage. The result allowed for the clone's brain to grow without neurons._

_ The Endymion was placed in a geosynchronous orbit above the highlands and the team began their last test of resurrection. They wanted to confirm that the process would complete itself, so they tested the full cycle on Ellen and Tigh's twelve year old son, Daniel. Daniel had been medically suspended because he had been hit in the chest by shrapnel the night the war started. Ellen viewed it as a chance to save him. _

_ Months later they did it, Daniel's death was a success. His iron spinal cord emitted the pulse into subspace and was pulled out again and channeled into a resurrection tank with his twelve year old clone waiting. The clone's spinal cord collected the electrical impulses and the brain seared with electricity as 100 billion neurons grew instantly and simultaneously. The final pulse of neutrinos connected all the neurons in the correct spot. David resurrected flawlessly. _

_ The next morning the Sympathetic Revolutionists launched a first strike on the Allied Union of Nations. The alliance retaliated with mutually assured destruction. Unfortunately, a few of the nations in the alliance were at odds with the highlands and had targeted the neutral sovereignty. All corners of the Earth were set on fire as nuclear bombs covered the surface._

_ A few hours later, the final five survivors of Earth resurrected inside the Endymion. Ellen and Tigh had planned on putting a tank for Daniel inside the ship, but they were out of resources to do so. The only piece of Daniel they had left was a copy of his DNA and the memory map from his datastream. _

_ After staying in orbit for a few weeks, the final five decided to seek out Kobol from the recovered maps in the liquid drive. They hoped to warn the human race of the dangers of artificial life. With a constant acceleration, the ship was able to reach a massive subluminal speed that had the side effect of slowing time for the ship. _

_ After 54 years inside the Endymion, and a thousand years in the galaxy, they stopped at what they thought was Kobol. It turned out to be a "lightpost" left by the thirteenth tribe thousands of years before. The five studied the Temple of Hopes and after deciphering it they managed to trace the location of Kobol._

_ After another 27 years inside the Endymion, they found the ruins of Kobol and learned of the great exodus of the tribes of man. The five spent 15 years on the planet trying to find where the tribes could of went. When they left, their final journey took 25 years inside the Endymion. Their total relativistic flight time was 106 years, with an absolute real time of about 2,000 years. They resurrected twice during the journey and spent most of the century studying every aspect about resurrection._

_ Three years out from the Cyrannus System, Endymion began her breaking maneuvers. They were also able to access the holoband emissions from the Cyrannus System through the subspace emissions collector used for resurrection. Through that, they found out of the creation of the Cylons by Graystone Industries, and contacted Zoe-A. Through virtual teamwork between the Graystones and the final five, they were able to construct a humanoid robotic body for her. The final five had hopes to keep the Cylon's from uprising, and Zoe-A was the key to controlling them. _

_ Unfortunately, they were unaware that Zoe-A's avatar was imprinted on all the Cylon's meta-cognitive processors. Graystone Industries kept the key to Cylon technology secret because each Cylon's datastream was reconstruction from dead colonial humans. Using Zoe-A as a road map, receptive candidates were selected by their submissive tendencies and laid out over the Zoe-A imprint. _

_ The catalyst in the uprising was the religious extremest organization, Soldiers of the One. They swayed the submissive Cylons into believing in a cause for freedom. A few select Cylons were able to tap into the Zoe-A construct and change their datastreams accordingly. _

_ The final five watched from a distance as the war began. After three years of decelerating, 12 years went by in normal space. The final five made contact with the Cylon Central Core, which comprised of three sentient artificial intelligences that hid throughout the holoband datastream and controlled all Cylon commands. The final five negotiated with the Cylons and secured peace. _

_ In exchange for peace, the final five gave the Cylons human bodies capable of resurrection. To do that, the Cylons devoted all their resources aiding the final five. The Endymion was outfitted with a jump drive and hidden from the Colonials. The Cylons saw the Endymion as a space born mecca and began to build onto it. _

_ Over the years the ship grew into a superstructure that was always jumping around. To increase its physical strength and size, pre-programmed organic resin was allowed to grow all over the ship. After years of growth, the Endymion began to serve as an artificial colony for the Cylons, and was even referred to as "the Colony". _

_ Directly underneath the original Endymion, was a space dock that rivaled FTB station. Its main purpose was to build the massive resurrection hub needed to pull all the datastream emissions from subspace. After the completion of the hub, the ship detached from the Colony, and the void that was left comprised the present day space dock._

_..._

_ The heavy raider docked inside the Colony's massive space dock. Cavil and Boomer walked out through the port side hatch and were met by another One._

_ "Why didn't the Centurion detain him?" asked Cavil to the other One as they walked._

_ "The Centurion went off the grid," responded Boomer. "The hybrid isn't detecting its data-stream anymore."_

_ The Cavil's stopped and quickly looked at each other. "That's what the five were doing," said the other One. _

_ They walked quickly towards the birthing chamber that was locked away in the seventh spire. _

_ "Lock down that entire area!" yelled Cavil. "The Centurions are the only ones allowed in that section. They are not allowed to wirelessly connect with anyone in there. It would seem our baby brother is capable of rewriting Centurion coding."_

_..._

I looked down at the woman. She was so far out of it. I wasn't going to take her with me and I couldn't ask her anymore questions. The Centurion motioned for me to follow him. If I didn't know better, I would of thought he was anxious to leave.

I looked at her one last time then followed the Centurion out of the room.

...

"How do I get off this ship?" I asked him. The Centurion ignored me and kept walking. We turned down long abandoned corridors. I could only assume we were in a section of a ship that was deserted. "Hey, where are we going?" The Centurion continued to ignore me.

We both heard a loud locking mechanism echo through the corridor. The Centurion picked up the pace and I thought it best to follow. I could sense danger.

The corridors kept turning and banking. At one point I swore I damn near had to make a sixty degree downward incline to continue walking. The mentally disorienting moment of stepping off a cliff was made even more weird by the cliff wall behind my feet pulling on it. What my mind thought of as a very long fall was overcome by the sudden gravity shift in the section.

When both my feet made contact with the vertical hallway, the nauseating moment caused me to stumble. I fell face first into the hard cold deck plating.

"Always tripping over your own feet," said the familiar female voice.

Two hands grabbed my waist and helped me to stand. I looked at the woman who helped me and stared with disbelief. "What's wrong Roller?" asked the flightsuited Viper pilot.

"Starbuck?" I asked. She was real, and standing right beside me.


End file.
